


Swap Snow for Leaves

by fiorediloto



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Episode: s01e06 Bastogne, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 09:18:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16489865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiorediloto/pseuds/fiorediloto
Summary: It’s gonna be fine, Nix said before he left, two hours and twenty-two minutes ago.A walk in the park. Stretch my legs a couple miles down, smoke a ciggie with the 501st and be home before breakfast time.Set at the beginning of the first day inBastogne.





	Swap Snow for Leaves

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the amazing [impala_chick](/users/impala_chick) for beta-reading.
> 
>  
> 
> Opening quote from Mumford & Sons' _Winter Winds_.

 

 

_Was it love or fear of the cold_

_That led us through the night?_

  
  
  


Dick Winters awakes with a gasp, an intense burn spreading through his right hand. Muttering softly under his breath, he moves the mug to his left hand and shakes the other in the air, coffee drops digging an array of tiny spots in the thin layer of snow at his feet. As if summoned, a gush of icy wind comes to dance around the burn. For a second it’s almost pleasant, a nice contrast, like a cold balm. Dick dries the hand on his lap, clenches his fist with a grimace and then shoves it in his coat pocket.

It’s a testament to his reflexesㅡor maybe to how desperate for warmth his body isㅡthat even through the sharp pain and the brain fog his hand refused to let go of the hot mug. He must have been gone for no more than a few seconds, he realises, bringing the cup to his nose. He can barely smell the coffee, diluted as it is, but the humid vapor softens the dry insides of his nostrils and makes his mouth water a little.

He takes an experimental sip. He’s past caffeine rushes, they all are, but the hot beverage helps. If anything, it seems to wrap the tight knot in his stomach in a warm, liquid blanket.

His lips still on the rim of the mug, ears perked up, he waits for the signs of life: the slightest flash of movement, the slightest noise, anything really, anything above the howl of the wind. Nothing comes.

Half an hour ago it started snowing: harshly, diagonally, the kind of heavy snow that covers footsteps and buries a man’s body. The ground around his tent is turning one shade brighter by the minute. At dawn it will shine deceptively, bright but not warm, until the first booted steps will have turned it into a muddy mess.

Uselessly, Dick scrapes the snow from the top of his right boot with the sole of his left, fully knowing that it will be covered again in a few minutes.

The men are spread all around, most of them sleeping in their foxholes, the ones on duty standing guard closer to the line. Earlier that night, Lipton volunteered for the first shift on the right flank. He promised to come and let him know as soon as anyone saw anything. Dick nodded and thanked him, ignoring a pang of guilt as he did. Lipton had been on guard duty every night for the past two weeks and deserved his sleep as much as the next man, but Dick couldn’t bring himself to turn down the offer. Something about the way he had phrased the sentenceㅡ“as soon as anyone sees anything”ㅡsuggested the impossible: that he would have ears and eyes everywhere along the line, that nothing and nobody would get past them undetected. Now Dick shakes his head at the notion. The line is spread so thin that it’s starting to render guard duty pointless.

Standing up restlessly, he checks the time. 0522. He should’ve been back by now, long before the snow started. The snow is bad news. With winter gear, maybe, but as it isㅡthere’s plains on the right flank, there’s roads. He will be as visible as an ant on a mount of sugar.

The coffee is turning lukewarm and uninviting, but Dick gulps it down all the same, then he starts pacing the tent back and forth. The simple act of moving disperses body warmth, making him shiver, but falling asleep out in the open would be much worse. He flexes the toes inside his boots, feeling them rigid and barely responsive.

He should go to his foxhole and wait there. It’s not like they wouldn’t know where to find him. He could catch some sleep and be marginally less of a wreck when the news comes inㅡwhatever it is. Instead he keeps pacing the tent, now with purpose: along the diagonal, along the side, the other diagonal, the other side. A boring little march.

_It’s gonna be fine_ , Nix said before he left, two hours and twenty-two minutes ago. _A walk in the park. Stretch my legs a couple miles down, smoke a ciggie with the 501st and be home before breakfast time._

Dick considered sending a couple of men with him, but Nix declined. He was used to reconning alone, he knew how to be fast and quiet and stay out of trouble. It made the most sense like this. Dick didn’t like it one bit, but as a tactician he had to acknowledge the logic of the plan. It was going to be fine. A walk in the park.

Nix flashed him a smile before touching his helmet goodbye. If he was tense, Dick couldn’t tell. _Don’t stay up for me, darling. You know you need your beauty sleep._

Now, at 0541, it’s growing increasingly harder to have a serene conversation with the tactician in him.

He’s just walked the full perimeter of the tent when he hears the crackling whistle of a German flare. His stomach tightens with recognition and his feet start running towards the closest foxhole before he’s even aware of it. He pulls the tarp open and jumps in as the first shell drops, felling a spruce a few yards to his right. The tree wavers and falls hard in the opposite direction, in a minor storm of needles and wood shards. After a second Dick hears the dirt and snow shot up in the air by the explosion shower right back on his cover like hail drops.

The men are shouting, their voices muffled under the tarp. “Take cover! Take cover!”

Dick braces himself and waits for the next drop, focusing hard on picturing the mortar shells explode harmlessly in the ample stretches of frozen land between one foxhole and the next. Any spot will do, really, any spot where his men are not. Another round of shells drops far away, at six o’ clock. In the silence that follows he perks up his ears, half-expecting someone to cry for a medic, but either there’s no need or they are too far.

Suddenly a corner of the tarpaulin is shoved aside, letting snow and pine needles and a man fall gracelessly inside the hole. The man falls half onto the ground and half into his lap, his sidearm digging hard into Dick’s thigh. Dick barely registers the pain. His left hand has already shot up to stop the man’s fall by grabbing his shoulder, his right hand moved of his own volition to pull the tarp shut above their heads. And not a second too early: a new mortar shell drops close, the closest so far, decimating a tree by the CP tent. A little puff of snow falls on Dick’s helmet through the edge of the cover.

They look at each other blindly in the pitch dark. They are both panting hard, their out-of-sync breaths the only discernible noise in the smoking, eerie silence.

“Goddamn Krauts could’ve waited ten minutes before starting the fireworks, couldn’t they,” Nix mutters. His hand fumbles in the air, landing clumsily on Dick’s cheek. It’s cold and rough and it smells like metalwork. “You all right?”

Dick grunts and pushes him aside, freeing Nix’s sidearm from its painful nest in his thigh. “Yeah. You all right?”

“Yeah.” A small pause, like Nix is considering whether to add something. Then he sighs. “Yeah, I’m all right. You got a cigarette?”

Dick searches his coat, producing a crushed pack and a lighter. In the flickering light he realizes that something does not look right.

“Is that blood on your face?”

“Mm? Yeah. Just a scratch. Branch fell on my head.”

Now that his eyes are adjusting to the dark, Dick can make out Nix’s face in the minimal sliver of light seeping in at the edge of the foxhole. There’s a thin stream of blood on his forehead, looking already half-dry. He brushes it clean with his thumb.

“Where’s your helmet?”

“Lost it in the first drop. Made a dive for it. I tell you, those flying rats got nothin’ on me. It’s not on my face, I told you, there’s a scratch on my head,” he explains. “Heyㅡc’mon, mother hen,” he protests when Dick grabs his face and pulls his head down to inspect the cut. “I’m all right,” he repeats. “Scout’s honor.”

“You were never a boy scout.” Reassured for the time being, Dick lets go of Nix’s head and sets his back against the wall, tapping another cigarette out of the pack. “You think I don’t know?”

“Oh, my. Caught in a web of lies.”

Dick lights the cigarette with a smile and takes the first, grateful puff with closed eyes. He can’t relax, not yet, but he feels as if a tap has been opened in his chest and relief is flowing throughㅡa strong, steady current of relief.

The foxhole already smells like tobacco and sweat. A soft halo of warmth radiates from Nix’s body and Dick thinks he’s going to be cold soon. His brain, which these days spends most of its energy working out ways to preserve body warmth, prompts him to move.

“Come here,” he says, grabbing the blanket folded in a corner and spreading it over their bodies. He runs his left arm behind Nix’s back, tucking the blanket under his chin, and then leaves the arm there. He can feel Nix shake softly, cigarette jerking in his handㅡresidual adrenaline, or maybe he’s just cold.

For a while they smoke in silence. When the next rounds drop, one quickly after another, they inch closer and brace themselves until all is quiet again.

“What took you so long?” Dick finally asks, putting out his cigarette. He moves his right hand under the blanket, finding Nix’s left, icy cold. He rearranges his arm to grab it in both of his hands, massaging it vigorously.

Nix puts out his cigarette and offers the other hand under the blanket with a grateful sigh. “Do you wanna know or do you wanna wait until tomorrow?”

“That bad?”

“Pretty bad.”

“Well,” considers Dick. “Seeing as it is tomorrow already.”

“All right then. The 501st, they’re not there. I walked all the way down to the road to Bizory. I considered crossing to the other side, but I met three Kraut patrols in an hour. They’re raking our line, Dick. By now they know where all the gaps are. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if they knew where our goddamn _latrines_ are.” Nix shakes his head, then rests it gingerly on Dick’s shoulder, eyes downcast. “I laid low for a while and then I took the longer route back, moved half a mile inward to be extra careful.”

“Good. Careful’s good,” Dick says, slowly processing the information. The strike seems to be over, and now that the adrenaline has subsided he feels groggy, slower than usual. Their combined warmth under the blanket is making him too comfortable. “We need to close that gap.”

“Already did. Sent a squad from 2nd Platoon on my way back.”

“Good. That’s good.”

He closes his eyes and falls asleep for exactly three seconds before a little noise jerks him awake. Under the blanket, between their intertwined hands, he feels Nix’s thumb trace gentle circles on his knuckles.

“Get some sleep. It’s early,” Nix says, facing away. A sloshing sound, a single gulp. The liquid sloshes back, canteen still almost full. Nix sets his cheek back on Dick’s lapel, his breath now smelling like the particular variety of whisky and smoke that he associates with Nix.

“It’s really not.”

“I don’t see much else to do. We can’t go out yet. And my conversation is terrible before ten o’clock. You can have a drink with meㅡ”

“Aha.”

“ㅡor we can make sweet sweet love until the sun rises. Which won’t be for anotherㅡuhㅡdamn, four hours,” he adds quickly. “Nah, can’t do that. I’m not the man that I used to be. Quick hand job instead?”

His thumb stops tracing patterns on the back of Dick’s hand, but it doesn’t pull away. If anything, it seems to be holding him in place.

They sit in silence, but the easy, companionable silence they had before is gone. Now Nix’s words are hanging in the air where their breaths mix, making it feel thicker, dense with possibilities.

Dick rests his free hand on the tangle Nix has created. They’re warm now, their hands, and the faintest hint of perspiration exudes from Dick’s palm. Not quite knowing what he means by the gesture, Dick gently pats that mockery of a handshake. It comes off a little paternal, a little fraternal.

Dick chews the inside of his cheek thoughtfully. This used to hurt proper, before Bastogne, and he would poke at the memory in his mind until he couldn’t feel it hurt anymore. Now it’s just a little scab, but he still can’t resist.

“We said we wouldn’t do that anymore.”

Nix raises his head, stretching his mouth in a smirk, the joke already on his lips. _Wait, did you think that I meantㅡ? Did you not realize that it was just aㅡ? Oh my, Captain Winters, what a filthy mind._

But he must be able to see how serious Dick is, how hesitant. He can probably feel Dick’s heartbeat on his fingertips. He surrenders.

“Aw, c’mon,” Nix mutters with a hint of exasperation. “Give a man a break. I had the worst night out there.” He dips his face in Dick’s collar, breathing in sharply. He frees his left hand from the sticky tangle and pushes it decisively under Dick’s coat, in the little pocket between two buttons.

Dick sighs, his senses made sharper by the uneasiness, trying to listen for incoming footsteps. Nix is hard against his hip bone, he notices with a flush of pleasure. It would be nice to have this, he can’t help thinking, to let Nix have it.

“Lip will come and report as soon as it’s safe,” he warns, distracted.

“It’s not safe,” Nix mumbles on his neck. He undoes a coat button with a swift flicker of his thumb, his hand diving further up Dick’s stomach. Nimble fingertips, used to working in the dark, immediately find the next barrier: a shirt button surrenders without a fight. “It’s never gonna be safe.”

As if to prove him right, a new round of artillery fire drops upon their line, comfortably far off to the north.

“NixㅡLew. Wait a sec. Wait a second, buddy.” Dick presses his hand on Nix’s, holding it still on his chest. “I’m telling you, someone will come soon.”

“Well,” Nix starts, a mischievous smile blossoming on his chapped lips. “Now that’s really up to us, isn’t it.”

“Lew,” Dick stops him, reproachfully. He doesn’t move Nix’s hand away, however. Truth be told, the warmth on his stomach is so comforting that Dick suspects he might fall asleep again very soon, if only he didn’t feel hyper-aware, every hair on his body standing to attention, his skin prickling with tension. He lets go of Nix’s hand, gingerly. Nix emits a little frustrated sigh but doesn’t move.

They wait and listen, and no one comes.

“Nix?”

“Yeah?”

“I’mㅡ” Now that’s the problem with opening your mouth before the thought is fully formed in your mind. _Sorry? Happy? Relieved?_ “ㅡproud. Of you. You did great out there.”

Nix chuckles softly, his arm digging deeper under Dick’s coat until his fingers wrap around his side. He’s slouching sideways now, cheekbone on Dick’s chest, the hem of the blanket up to his nose.

“I did, didn’t I? A true American hero.”

“Yes, you did,” Dick repeats slowly. He rests his cheek on Nix’s head, smelling grease and sweat, eager to pin him down with the same comforting warmth he feels expanding in his chest, but most of all eager to close the little gaps between their body parts, to have them lock in place like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle: Nix’s head under his chin, his arms around Nix’s shoulders. Lew’s legs inch closer, his left boot crawls over Dick’s ankle and settles between his shins. Dick pats down the blanket, tucks it under Nix’s thigh so that the cold air will stay out, then his arm dives back under.

It’s a perfect little moment, and a rare one at that. Dick is pleased, then wary. Nix has a tendency to shatter moments like this, as if too much beauty overloads some gland in his brain to the point where the sensation becomes unbearable.

And sure enough: “You’re right,” Nix mumbles at the end of whatever cogitation prompted him to speak. “It was a bad idea.”

“What?” Dick replies, going for levity. “Stay warm? Take shelter?”

But Nix won’t have it. “It shouldn’tㅡ _we_ shouldn’t,” he articulates, “be like this.”

Dick sighs sharply, as if he could exhale in one go the memories of five past conversations just like this one. Nix is tired, he tells himself, he’s had a bad night. He almost died, or he thinks he did. Dick can see too clearly in his mind how he was shaking when he jumped into the hole, and the thought fills him with an overwhelming desire to keep him safe from harm.

But the sigh triggered something in Nix, something ugly and self-destructive that only ever comes up when the bottle calls. “We should go back to beingㅡthe way we were before.”

A small part of Dick’s brain, the one devoted to pointing out the amusing side of things, picks up immediately on the absurdity of this line coming from Nix. Nix, who not five minutes ago had a hard-on pressed against Dick’s hip and his mouth on Dick’s throat. But consistency is not Nix’s strongest suit, nor is he in a mood to respond to logic now.

“I am the same as I’ve ever been.” Something boils quietly in his stomach, a flutter of rage now that he thinks about what Nix is really saying. That Nix would think he could be less of himself, that he could just dismantle a part of his soul and stow it away. Or worse, that it’s all been innocent fun between them, like entering a party you can just leave when you’re bored, but _hey buddy, no hard feelings, okay_?

“You know what I mean,” Nix replies, in a low rumble.

“I don’t. We stopped this already, a month ago. And two months ago. And three months ago. What do you want me to say?”

Dick sees Nix recoil from his anger. For a moment he thinks Nix is considering retreat, and he grabs him by the arm should he decide to do something crazy like jump out of the foxhole. Nix tenses all right, but when he springs it’s in the opposite direction. His mouth crushes against Dick’s, their noses bend painfully, their teeth click. Dick’s helmet hits the wall behind him with a clang. Dick wills his body to relax under Nix’s assault and tilts his head to the side. Nix invades his mouth, both tongues so dry and dirty that for a moment the kiss is pure discomfort, and they drudge on purely off the memories of the good ones they’ve had before. Then their mouths water and the kiss becomes wet and sloppy and less like a chore and they break it to start again, a couple times, ferociously, almost biting.

Dick’s heart is thumping, his head is ringing like a fire alarm went off inside it. Nix’s hand shoots down to his crotch and grips hard.

“Lew,” he sighs. “Stop. If someoneㅡ”

Nix’s mouth falls on Dick’s neck, on his throat, kissing and sucking a downward trail while a sneaky hand grabs his helmet and throws it away. He plants a knee on the ground to push himself up and puts his lips to Dick’s ear. His breath is hot and humid and it makes Dick shiver with anticipation. “We’ll hear them. You don’t need to do a thing, just let meㅡlet me take care of you, okay? Won’t take long.”

Something about his tone, about the way Nix is asking for it, pulls at all the loose strings in Dick’s heart. He grabs a fistful of Nix’s hair, not roughly, just to get Nix to look at him, and kisses him hungrily and messily until warm saliva smears on both of their chins. Nix looks flushed, taken aback, but after a second his mouth is back on Dick’s jaw, on his earlobe, and Dick has to bite away a moan before it makes it all the way to his lips. It hums in his throat so strongly that Nix must have felt it.

Under the blanket, Nix’s hand undoes Dick’s belt in three precise movements and seemingly just swipes away all pants buttons in his way. He fishes out Dick’s cock through the slit in his underpants, gently this time, and  spits on his hand to make his palm slicker, applying it immediately to the length. He pulls it lazily in a few long strokes, then tightens the grip around the base of the head, pumping faster, then all over again, a steady cycle. Dick knows this is the way Nix touches himself, the way he likes to be touched. He yearns to touch him now, but he’s too far. He combs Nix’s hair back instead, pressing his mouth to his forehead.

“Feel good?” Nix murmurs to his stomach.

“Yeah,” Dick answers, surprised. “This is good. Nix, why don’t you let meㅡ”

“I’ve got you, buddy. Just relax, okay? Close your eyes and think of England.”

Dick chuckles, throwing his head back. As a matter of fact, something nice did happen to him in England. And maybe Nix is thinking of it too, because he’s doing the most pleasurable thing to his foreskin, and Dick is starting to feel close to the edge, dangerously so.

“Hold that thought,” Nix whispers, letting go of him. He climbs back up Dick’s body, pressing his face into his neck. There’s a soft tinkling noise as he opens his own belt, a rustle of fabric. Nix readjusts his body against Dick’s, lines up their cocks and grabs them both in his palm with a tremulous breath. “Like this,” he sighs. “God, yes.”

Dick kisses him to catch the loudest sounds in his own mouth, a part of his brain ever vigilant, ever detached. He doesn’t think that they will ever have a moment where they don’t secretly expect to be interrupted. If something like that is even possible for them, that kind of reckless abandon that blocks out the outside world and causes lives to be lost, he thinks it’s so far down the line that they will be dead before they even catch a glimpse of it.

Nix pulls away from the kiss, nose nuzzling his cheek, mouth lingering over his. “You got a hanky?”

Dick produces a monogrammed handkerchief from his pocket, carefully folded twice, and shakes it open.

He’s close, so close. He kisses Nix’s jaw, his neck, his earlobe. ’So good,” he whispers, struck by an inspiration. “This is so good.” Something about this whole sex talk business strikes him as awkward, and he knows he will recollect it with a little embarrassment. But Nix seems to think differently.

“It is, isn’t it?” He mutters, voice broken. “You like this.”

“I do. I do. Don’t stop. Please.” Nix moans softly. “Please, Lew.”

They come one after another, their semen mixing on the hanky and on Nix’s hand. They ride the pleasure waves together, holding each other tight and shaking softly until there’s nothing left to give.

As soon as it’s over, Dick’s well-trained brain immediately provides a checklist of things to do to make it disappear. He starts by cleaning Nix and himself and Nix’s hand and folding away the handkerchief, then he pushes Nix away from his nest under Dick’s chin.

“Come on, Lew,” he murmurs, gently slapping his cheek. “Let’s make ourselves decent.”

In less than a minute it’s all gone, every obvious sign erased, and if the foxhole didn’t reek so strongly of human smells you might think that nothing at all has ever happened in that square yard of Belgian land.

Afterwards they sit under the blanket, waiting for their bodies to cool down and the cold to start biting again. Dick closes his eyes. Nix has been quiet for a while, perhaps half-asleep already.

The less obvious reason why he doesn’t like doing this kind of thing so close to the line is that it leaves him sappy and soft, all his nerves exposed as if stripped clean of whatever sheathing normally insulates them. He will feel like this for awhile, he knows, and as long as he does he won’t be able to function properly, each decision slower, each movement sluggish.

Maybe it’s the same for Nix. Heck, maybe it’s the same for everybody. They never talk about itㅡthey never talk much afterwardsㅡbut to Dick this feeling is just the natural aftermath of pleasure. He couldn’t imagine just snapping out of it and going about his business as if nothing had happened.

He checks his watch. 0607.

“There. What did I tell you? It took less to make you come than to get you to drop your pants.” Nix’s voice is dripping with smugness and affection.

Dick smiles. “What can I say? I like efficiency.”

“Now that’s one way to say it.”

“You starve me off for another month, you’ll see how efficient I can get.”

Dick regrets it as soon as the words escape his mouth. _Idiot_ , he thinks. _You idiot. Why would you ruin it with something like that._

“And we cannot have that now, can we,” Nix replies, airily. “Let me check when I’m on the rag next, so I can make sure you can fuck me proper.”

“That came off wrong. I just meantㅡI’ve missed you, Nix.”

Dick hears the whisky slosh in the canteen, the metal cap scrape against the mouth of the bottle. One, two, three gulps, down.

“I haven’t gone anywhere,” Nix says darkly.

“Yeah, right,” mutters Dick, looking at his hands.

He can think of few worse moments to have this conversation, but there they are, the unsheathed nerves, running raw under his skin.

“Just because I won’t come and jerk you off every time you expect itㅡ”

“When have I ever _expectedㅡ_ ”

_“_ I know when you want it. I know what you want. I know you.”

“And you know all about me, right?” Dick snaps.

“I know that we’re different, you and I.”

That’s when it strikes Dick that Nix does feel the same way, after all. Also Nix’s nerves are out in the open, bare and delicate and tingling. When he feels like that, Dick needs quiet and a moment to compose himself, but Nix is insufferable when he feels exposed. He snarks, he bites. Dick knows it and he knows that this is a trap, that Nix just wants a fight to divert attention from the things he doesn’t want to think about.

When he realizes that, the little flame of anger that was igniting in his chest trembles and dies out.

“Say it.” He looks him right in the eye. “Get it off your chest, Nix. What am I?”

Nix looks sullen. “I don’t mean itㅡlike that.”

“Like what?”

“LikeㅡLook, I’m not gonna start calling you names.”

“I wouldn’t care if you did.” Not true. He would care a great deal. He would hate it if Nix called him a faggot, a sissy, a queen. A nancy boy, a fairy, a pansy. An invert. A pederast. There are so many. He wonders which one Nix would choose.

“You’re the one who said you don’t care for the ladies.”

“I don’t,” Dick acknowledges, softly.

“And I’m not like that. And that’s all I meant.”

He sounds sulky and apologetic, as if suddenly out of steam, as if he can’t tell precisely why they are fighting anymore. This is so typical Nix, Dick thinks, Nix with a little help from the bottle.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with me,” he declares calmly.

“There isn’t,” Nix agrees immediately. “That’s notㅡ”

“Nor with this. There’s nothing wrong with this either. That clear?”

Nix shuts his mouth, but Dick is not expecting a reply at this point, nor does he particularly care if Nix agrees with him.

“Come here,” he says, softly now, running an arm around Nix’s shoulders and dragging him close. He brushes his jaw with a thumb, a gentle caress. “Give me that.” He steals the canteen from his unresisting fingers. “You had a hell of a night.”

“Yeah. Yours was peachy, I’m told.”

Dick smiles tiredly. “There were moments.”

They get a good five seconds in peace. In five seconds Dick has just about the time to ponder whether a kiss would be appropriate, after the ugliness and all, or whether it will push Nix over the edge again. They don’t really kiss when they’re not pulling each other off, and even then Nix is generally more interested in his body than his mouth. It’s not something that Dick cares to spell out in so many words, but he’s aware that Nix doesn’t like the way it _looks_.

He doesn’t need to make up his mind, however. Suddenly it’s back: the far detonation of a mortar, followed by the ascending whistle of the explosive shell, unexpected and oh-so-close, and Dick feels every inch of his skin rise in a panic, and he couldn’t tell why but he sees with utmost clarity that this is _it_ , this is the one that falls right into his foxhole, this is the one he cannot outrun, he cannot dodge. Out of pure instinct he grabs Nix by the arm, pulls him over his lap and covers Nix’s upper body with his own, head over his head, arms all around, holding him there. The shells drop, one, two, three, fourㅡDick loses count at twelve. He chokes down a sob so hard that his throat throbs with pain.

When it’s finally over, it feels like he will smell gunpowder and have dust clouding his vision for the rest of his life. He coughs and Nix coughs too, rising up. Nix’s face is relatively clean, but his hair is covered in a fine layer of dirty snow.

“Are you all right?”

Nix nods. He suppresses a smirk, then he seems to think _what the hell_ and smiles proper. “I had a profound realisation in the last forty seconds,” he declares, brushing some dirt off Dick’s face.

“Oh yeah? And what would that be?” Dick asks, placing a hand lazily on the side of his neck. His face is fine, he thinks. Thank God.

“You might call it an epiphany. I was down and I thought: this is it. This is the one.”

“Me too,” Dick murmurs, caressing away a snowflake from Nix’s cheek.

“I was pissed as hell. I thought, what a lousy way to go. And that’s when I realized. There are so many worse ways to die than with my face in Dick Winters’ crotch.”

Nix grins like an idiot, expectantly, and Dick chuckles, and Nix starts chuckling too, and then they are both laughing until it hurts their sides, inhaling dust and coughing and inhaling it back again. Still laughing and coughing Nix falls back with his head on Dick’s lap, face up this time, pulling the blanket over his chest.

“Imagine being found like that,” he adds at length, raising a hand to brush Dick’s lapel with his knuckles. His right foot pushes flat against the wall of the foxhole.

“There wouldn’t be much left to find,” Dick points out, taking his hand. Now that it’s over, the thought of them dying seems preposterous, even with so much adrenaline still pumping strong in his veins.

“No, I don’t think so,” Nix concedes. “But if there _was_. Think about it. Obviously your crotch would have the highest chance of being found in one piece. I mean, if you look at all the layers on top of it.”

“Obviously. What a relief.”

“Maybe I’ll be quick enough next time,” Nix ponders, eyes shining with amusement.

“Quick enough for what?”

“Why, that’s obvious. I’ll take your cock and put it in my mouth. Call it a prank,” he ends proudly, sputtering even as he finishes the sentence.

Dick sets his head back against the wall and laughs, eyes closed, mouth open and dirt on his tongue, until after a while they both fall silent. He’s still holding Nix’s hand, fingers intertwined together. He looks down. Nix is looking up, probably has for a while.

“I would like that,” Dick says softly.

“Mm? What?”

“What you said.”

“You would like to die like that?”

“Without the dying part.”

Nix bites his smile off, looking away, and shakes his head in quiet disbelief.

The tarp is pushed away and First Sergeant Lipton peeks over the edge of the foxhole, crouching on his heels. It’s not much brighter outside, but Dick can see that it stopped snowing. The air smells crisp and fresher than inside. Nix is up next to Dick, arms on his bent knees, looking purposefully forward.

“Captain Winters, Captain NixㅡAh, Captain Nixon, you’re here.” He salutes him warmly. “It’s good to see you, sir. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, thank you, Lip. Our neighbors threw quite a tantrum, so sad they were to see me go.” Lipton smiles, genuinely pleased. “And how are you on this fine morning, First Sergeant?”

“Oh, you know me, sir. I’m not one for complaining.” He looks at Dick. “I would’ve come sooner, sir, but the strikes caught me half-way through. I’m on my way back to check on the boys, but no confirmed hits so far. Just bruises and a few scratches. I’m sorry to say a tree fell over your tent, sir.” He points with a thumb to a spot behind his back. “I will ask the boys to pull it back up. Probably not much to be done about the table, though, from the look of it.”

“Thank you, Lip. That all?”

“That’s all, Captain.”

Dick glances at his watch. “Your shift ended two hours ago, First Sergeant. Tell the men the tent can wait another hour and go to sleep.”

Lipton salutes and stands to leave, knees creaking sharply as he does.

0623\. In seven minutes he will get his wake-up call, he thinks with something akin to frustration. He touches his chin, the rough one-day-old stubble, and considers his limited options for a shave that won’t quite butcher his face.

Nix stands up, stretches his limbs with a grimace and climbs out of the foxhole. In the moonlight reflecting off the fresh layer of snow he looks dirtier and more ruffled than ever, especially with the blood badge on his forehead, yet he seems perky.

“Say, Captain, you think you can do without me for a couple hours? I wouldn’t mind some shut-eye myself before briefing.”

“Yeah, sure. Knock yourself out.” There’s a look on Nix’s face, a glimmer and a smirk. “What?”

Nix sits on his heels, looking down at him with his best son-of-a-bitch smile. “You know, you might want to be a little rough with that razor.”

“What? Why?”

“In case someone asks if a flying rat assaulted you.” Nix touches his own neck, left and right, and Dick realizes that he’s been marked with what they call ’love bites’.

Nix looks so smug that Dick grabs his helmet from the ground and throws it at him, but the other man dodges surprisingly fast.

“Aw, come on,” Nix says, crouching again and extending a hand.

Dick reaches up. “Good try,” says Nix, slapping his hand away. He curls up his fingers demandingly.

Dick follows Nix’s line of sight to the canteen lying on the ground behind him and hands it over with an eye roll.

“Good boy.” Nix taps Dick’s cheek with his fingertips, smile flashing, eyes lingering for the briefest moment. “I’ll see you around.”

There’s a question barely hidden in his voice, something like _Are we okay?_

Dick nods. He wishes he could just grab Nix and go sleep somewhere, just sleep for a whole day. As it is, he stretches his neck, pulls up his collar and gives himself the order to go check on the boys.

“Yeah. Good night, Nix.”

 


End file.
